The cut-to-the-bone mentality of organizations trying to weather a lingering recession has taken its toll on employees’ perception of long-term career opportunities at those companies, according to a report released Dec. 15, 2009.
The negativity stems from being worn down by the recession, the survey says. That pessimism also is prompting workers to view their leaders in a less-than-rosy light, according to findings from Towers Perrin’s Quarterly Workplace Watch. Data is from about 640,000 people working at 54 companies around the world from July-September 2009.
A key question for organizations as the economy starts to recover is whether the changes organizations made during the recession are temporary or permanent, according to the survey report.

They’re antsy and edgy, tired of waiting for promotion opportunities at work as their elders put off retirement. A good number of them are just waiting for the economy to pick up so they can hop to the next job, find something more fulfilling and get what they think they deserve. Oh, and they want work-life balance, too.
Sounds like Gen Y, the so-called “entitlement generation,” right?
Not necessarily, say people who track the generations. In these hard times, they’re also hearing strong rumblings of discontent from Generation X. They’re the 32- to 44-year-olds who are wedged between baby boomers and their children, often feeling like forgotten middle siblings — and increasingly restless at work as a result.

Companies across the economy are holding off on hiring even as the profit outlook improves, amid economic uncertainty and their own success at raising productivity in rough waters.
Hiring always lags behind in economic recoveries, but the outlook this time is worse, many economists say. Most forecasters now expect a prolonged period of high unemployment, even though the government is expected to report next week that the economy grew in the third quarter, after four quarters of contraction. That is sure to frustrate the jobless and could be a problem for the Obama administration.

Since the downturn began, thousands of employers have cut pay, increased workers’ share of health-care costs or reduced the employer contribution to retirement plans.
Two-thirds of big companies that cut health-care benefits don’t plan to restore them to pre-recession levels, they recently told consulting firm Watson Wyatt. When the firm asked companies that have trimmed retirement benefits when they expect to restore them, fewer than half said they would do so within a year, and 8% said they didn’t expect to ever.

New employees at the headquarters of the Simmons Bedding Company got a little book containing 84 sayings of their boss, Charlie Eitel.
Saying No. 1: “In order to create a viable vision you must answer one very fundamental question, ‘What do you really want?’ ”

For most of the 133 years since its founding in a small city in Wisconsin, the Simmons Bedding Company enjoyed an illustrious history.
Presidents have slumbered on its mattresses aboard Air Force One. Dignitaries have slept on them in the Lincoln Bedroom. Its advertisements have featured Henry Ford and H. G. Wells. Eleanor Roosevelt extolled the virtues of the Simmons Beautyrest mattress, and the brand was immortalized on Broadway in Cole Porter’s song “Anything Goes.”

By many measures, it has been a tough year for employees of Electronic Data Systems.

After Hewlett-Packard bought the computer services company last August for $13.9 billion, it immediately began hacking the work force. Led by a master cost-cutter, Mark V. Hurd, H.P. laid off 25,000 E.D.S. workers, and cut the salaries of some by more than 20 percent. Mr. Hurd even stripped the E.D.S. brass of their plush offices and corralled them into 6-by-6-foot cubicles.

In this land of inherited privilege and celebrity billionaires, it no longer pays as much to be rich. Hobbled by soaring debt and ballooning public spending amid the global financial crisis, the British government is joining others around the globe in tapping the wealthy to cover massive shortfalls.

In the recession last year, the nation’s poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The report also documented a decline in employer-provided health insurance and in coverage for adults.